US Senators ask DHS to look into US government workers using foreign VPNsTwo US senators have asked the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to look into the possible dangers of US government workers using VPN apps that are owned by foreign companies and which redirect sensitive government-related traffic through servers located in other countries –namely China and Russia.
Here’s a thought. A VPN for the government run by the government…

AMD, Nvidia Have Launched the Least-Appealing GPU Upgrades in HistoryYesterday, AMD launched the Radeon VII, the first 7nm GPU. The card is intended to compete with Nvidia’s RTX family of Turing-class GPUs, and it does, broadly matching the RTX 2080. It also matches the RTX 2080 on price, at $700…But as things stand today, the consumer GPU market feels stuck in an unwelcome position where the only generational performance improvements available are reserved to those who can afford to jump at least a price bracket for their next GPU. Historically, there’s never been a need to do that. Hopefully, there still isn’t.
Yup. Overpriced and underwhelming.

Jeff Bezos just confirmed what we all knew: Nudes are no big deal
That headline (and article) is ignorant. It is a big deal. If you don’t think so there is something wrong with you.
I don’t understand the whole nude selfie thing. I mean, you understand that those things never stay private right? And dudes, most women don’t want to see pics of your junk anyway.

Nvidia Geforce Game Ready WHQL Driver 418.81Includes support for new GeForce RTX laptops, and delivers the optimum performance in Futuremark’s 3DMark Port Royal benchmark, which has just added a new feature test for NVIDIA Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS).Download | Release Notes

Fitness WatchesI give up. All I wanted was a watch that accurately measures cardio and calories burned across all my activities. Especially and including weightlifting. I don’t need a coach, or workout advice. I don’t want to input my reps. I could live with a external monitor of some kind tied to the watch but not an arm or chest band. AFAIK the device I want doesn’t exist.

New study: Google manipulates users into constant trackingToday, the Norwegian Consumer Council has filed a complaint against Google. Based on new research Google is accused of using deceptive design and misleading information, which results in users accepting to be constantly tracked.
Not news to most of us.

Are There Fake Chickens Out There?
I went to Arby’s yesterday because, you know, “They have the meats.” I saw the sign below. Apparently Arby’s thinks there are fake chickens running wild and ending up in stores. I went Googling as I’m wont to do when I smell BS. I came up with this from Consumer Reports:Natural: CR dubbed this one “the most misleading label” of the bunch, as more than half of the survey respondents said they believed “natural” meant the chickens didn’t receive antibiotics or chow down on feed containing GMOs. 42% of respondents said they thought the term meant the chickens were raised outdoors, while 1-in-3 said they thought it meant the same as “organic.” The only substantial requirement for “natural” chicken breasts is that they contain no artificial ingredients, but even then there is no process to verify this claim.

Samsung NVM Express Driver 3.1Windows 10 RS5 compatibility fixThe driver supports the Samsung NVMe SSD 970 PRO, 970 EVO, 970 EVO Plus, 960 PRO, 960 EVO and 950 PRO.The driver supports Windows 7, Windows 8.1 and Windows 10.Release Notes (In Installation Guide)
FYI – RS5 is Win10 build 1809 or “October 2018 Update”. It would kill you guys at Samsung to use the common build number or name?Download
For the next days or weeks you will likely get a “We apologize for your inconvenience Please try again within 24 hours” notice because whoever is in charge over there obviously has trouble doing their job. So I’m gonna throw it up here for a while:http://www.mediafire.com/file/xx61mg11i6rkb85/Samsung_NVM_Express_Driver_3.1.zip/file

Intel Core i9-9900KF Listed at U.S. Retailers – [H]ardOCPTwitter user and dataminer momomo_us just spotted an Intel Core i9-9900KF listed at B&H Photo and Video, and a quick search on Google shows that NextWarehouse and NeutronUSA have the processor up for sale too. Unfortunately, B&H has the i9-9900KF priced at $582.50, which is significantly higher than the ~$530 street price regular 9900Ks are going for right now.

Polar vortex to bring prolonged, life-threatening cold outbreak to midwestern US this weekThe coldest weather in years will put millions of people and animals throughout the midwestern United States at risk for hypothermia and frostbite to occur in minutes during the final days of January.
Forecasted low at my house in Virginia is expected to bottom out around 12°F (-11.11°C) on Wednesday night. Then by next Monday we will be back up to 61°F (16.11°C).
Stay safe y’all. Find someone to share body heat with.

Google Maps will now display speed limits for its Android and iOS appsdisplays the posted speed limit on roads in the corner of the app, and also introduces an icon to denote the location of speed cameras
Thats good news. For the past few years I’ve bounced back and forth between Google Maps and Waze. Waze is great for getting you out of a fix and for letting your know where “emergency vehicles” are. However it’s directions have gotten weirder over time.

Tim Cook pretends to care about privacy in Time op-edIf Tim Cook and Apple really cared about privacy, they wouldn’t have thrown 1.2 billion Chinese under the bus by handing over iCloud data to the Chinese government, and by sheepishly refusing to even mention “China” when it comes to Apple’s thin veneer of “privacy first”.Apple’s complete cooperation with the Chinese government makes it very clear that Apple is all too eager to roll over and disregard its privacy chest-thumping the second their own bottom line is at risk. And lest we forget – China is a totalitarian, repressive regime that doesn’t shy away from torture and concentration camps.

Geolocation Data Could Get Privacy Protection Under New ADD ActThe bill uses as its framework the Privacy Act of 1974, which governs how federal agencies handle and protect records about individuals. Under the 1974 Act the government cannot (with some exceptions) share data about someone without their prior permission and must allow a person to see, get a copy of and correct records about themselves. The government can be sued for violating the Act.

Gap between rich and poor growing, fuelling global angerA new billionaire was created every two days last year, just as the poorest half of the world’s population saw their wealth decline by 11 percentWorld’s 26 richest people own as much as poorest 50%The growing concentration of the world’s wealth has been highlighted by a report showing that the 26 richest billionaires own as many assets as the 3.8 billion people who make up the poorest half of the planet’s population.Make No Mistake, Davos, the Fat Cat Backlash Is ComingThere has always been a whiff of hypocrisy at Davos, where elites expand their carbon footprint, eat $43 hot dogs and throw lavish parties in the name of making the world a better place. “Fat cats in the snow,” the regular attendee Bono once called it (and he should know). But given the rapid advances of populist politics, it’s remarkable that in 2019, those felines are looking better-fed than ever. The past decade and a half has seen U.S. corporate profits outgrow employee compensation at an unprecedented pace, according to the St. Louis Fed. A Bloomberg News analysis of the fortunes of a dozen Davos attendees found that they soared by a combined $175 billion since 2009.

***Aspirin lowers heart attack risk but raises risk of dangerous bleeding
Big warnings floating around this week over this news. Be sure to actually read what the article/study says and talk to your doctor before buying into these hyped up articles. Doctors have long recommended low-dose aspirin to prevent heart attacks and strokes. Bayer, Walgreens, CVS, Equate, Kirkland, St. Joseph and a host of other brands of low dose aspirin are 81mg. The study claims increased risk but they measured doses as large as high as 500mg.Doctors today typically don’t prescribe doses higher than 100 mg.Still, the results reinforce the need for doctors and patients to have a thoughtful discussion of the benefits and harms of aspirin for primary prevention of heart attacks and strokes, Dr. Michael Gaziano of Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston writes in an accompanying editorial.
The study page (account needed for full access, sorry fellow peons):Association of Aspirin Use for Primary Prevention With Cardiovascular Events and Bleeding Events

Anandtech – The Western Digital WD Black SN750 SSD Reviewthe third generation WD Black SSD is here, with the model number SN750 to avoid confusion with its predecessors…Performance has been improved slightly across most of the major metrics, but none of the improvements are anything huge…By 2018 standards, the new WD Black is still a very competitive high-end NVMe SSD…The WD Black SN750 will be hitting the market most closely priced to the Samsung 970 EVO. In those conditions, the SN750 will be the obvious choice for laptop usage due to its great power efficiency. For desktop usage, the Samsung 970 EVO may be the slightly better performer overall

The Tech Report System Guide: January 2019 editionThis is where the TR staff picks out the créme de la créme of hardware components fit for the most price-effective builds around. We’ve tried to create builds across a wide range of price points with parts that provide the best performance possible for the money. However, we don’t just ferret out the cheapest components possible or compromise configurations to hit arbitrary price points. Indeed, these are the systems we’d build for ourselves, given the money.
These guys do a great job with their system guides. Recommended.

Verizon will give subscribers free access to anti-robocall toolsstarting in March, subscribers with compatible smartphones (including iPhone and Android devices) will be able fend off unwanted robocalls without having to pay extra. Verizon says it will release more info on how to sign up for the free tools near their launch date…The company also says that it has committed to supporting the new STIR/SHAKEN technology that can authenticate a call’s origin and can alert subscribers if it’s a spoofed call. As you know, robocallers use spoofing to mask their real numbers to, say, make it appear as if the call is coming from the recipient’s location. That increases the chances of the recipient picking up the phone and falling prey to their schemes.
Until December I had been using Extreme Call Blocker but it stopped working. Currently I am using Calls Blacklist PRO.

Straight To Hell
A local musician reminded me of one of an old song I like called Straight To Hell by Drivin N Cryin. It’s great sing along bar song.Hootie err… Darius Rucker covered the song very well.
(If the videos don’t play you may need to adjust Ublock / Adblock / Privacy Badger settings.)

Feds Can’t Force You To Unlock Your iPhone With Finger Or Face, Judge Rules“If a person cannot be compelled to provide a passcode because it is a testimonial communication, a person cannot be compelled to provide one’s finger, thumb, iris, face, or other biometric feature to unlock that same device,” the judge wrote…The magistrate judge decision could, of course, be overturned by a district court judge, as happened in Illinois in 2017 with a similar ruling. The best advice for anyone concerned about government overreach into their smartphones: Stick to a strong alphanumeric passcode that you won’t be compelled to disclose.
We haven’t heard the last of this. I would imagine it goes the the Supreme Court.

‘Star Trek’ Boss: Picard Leads “Radically Altered” Life in CBS All Access SeriesThe Picard series will be the first onscreen Trek story set in the aftermath of that event, which would have altered the balance of power in the galaxy. The destruction of Romulus would also have extra resonance for Picard, who has a long and complicated relationship with the Romulans, the alien race that split from Vulcan society thousands of years ago and founded a separate civilization.
As long as they don’t turn him into a mutineer we’re good.

Too Many Workers Are Trapped By Non-CompetesWhy have wages been so slow to rise at a time when demand for workers has pushed the U.S. unemployment rate to its lowest point in nearly half a century? One answer: contracts that tie millions of unspecialized workers to their jobs.In far too many cases, these so-called noncompetes are an unwarranted restriction on freedom to transact and a drag on growth. If Congress won’t act to narrow their scope, states should take the lead.

U.S. Restaurant Prices Jump the Most Since 2011It’s getting more expensive to eat out. Full-service restaurants, facing higher labor and food costs, raised prices the most in more than seven years in December…The gap between how much it costs to eat out instead of grocery shopping “has continued to widen pretty aggressively. It’s a problem,” said Michael Halen, Bloomberg Intelligence analyst.

Industry wary of alternatives tries to protect a word: meatMore than four months after Missouri became the first U.S. state to regulate the term “meat” on product labels, Nebraska’s powerful farm groups are pushing for similar protection from veggie burgers, tofu dogs and other items that look and taste like real meat.Nebraska lawmakers will consider a bill this year defining meat as “any edible portion of any livestock or poultry, carcass, or part thereof” and excluding “lab-grown or insect or plant-based food products.” It would make it a crime to advertise or sell something “as meat that is not derived from poultry or livestock.”Similar measures aimed at meat alternatives are pending in Tennessee, Virginia and Wyoming.
Had me a burger with bacon, cheddar cheese, onions, and jalapenos last night. Animals are delicious.

Microsoft Blog – Windows Sandbox
Most of the Windows sites are talking about this. In a future Win10 build, Microsoft is going to introduce a TEMPORARY sandbox feature. It isn’t intended to be a replacement for Virtual Machines. Something most writers on this subject seem to be missing.
“an isolated, temporary, desktop environment where you can run untrusted software without the fear of lasting impact to your PC. Any software installed in Windows Sandbox stays only in the sandbox and cannot affect your host. Once Windows Sandbox is closed, all the software with all its files and state are permanently deleted.”
Sounds like a neat feature. x64, Win10 Pro and Enterprise only.

Google’s Secret China Project “Effectively Ended” After FightGoogle has been forced to shut down a data analysis system it was using to develop a censored search engine for China after members of the company’s privacy team raised internal complaints that it had been kept secret from them, The Intercept has learned.
C’mon man. Does anyone seriously believe that?

As Facebook Raised a Privacy Wall, It Carved an Opening for Tech GiantsFacebook insisted that it had instituted stricter privacy protections long ago. Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive, assured lawmakers in April that people “have complete control” over everything they share on Facebook.But the documents, as well as interviews with about 50 former employees of Facebook and its corporate partners, reveal that Facebook allowed certain companies access to data despite those protections.
#DeleteFacebook

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